California employment case index

Nine hospital-system employees sought religious exemptions from a COVID-19 vaccination requirement and sued under Title VII when they were denied. The Ninth Circuit affirms judgment for the employer: after Groff v. DeJoy, undue hardship means a “substantial” burden — including realistic health, safety, and staffing costs — and exempting unvaccinated clinical staff during the Delta surge met that standard.

Two Chico State physics professors sued the CSU Trustees for retaliation, alleging a sham investigation and sabotage of their move to a new university after they reported harassment. The Trustees moved to strike the claims under the anti-SLAPP statute as “based in part” on protected speech. The Third District affirms denial: a movant must analyze each claim element-by-element and identify which acts are protected — “based in part” is not enough.

A nursing student said the faculty member running her hospital clinical rotation sexually harassed her and tanked her grade when she refused him. The Fourth District holds a student in a required clinical placement is an “unpaid intern” protected by FEHA, and reverses summary judgment on standing, Government-Claims-Act notice, and deliberate indifference.

A produce-plant forklift driver was fired after complaining his pay lagged behind coworkers’. He wrongly believed the Equal Pay Act reached the gap — but the Fourth District holds his mistake of law does not sink his Labor Code section 1102.5(b) whistleblower verdict, because the statute asks only whether he had objectively reasonable cause to believe a violation occurred, a question for the jury.

World Vision revoked a job offer to a customer-service applicant after learning she was in a same-sex marriage. The Ninth Circuit held the ministerial exception barred her Title VII and WLAD claims, because — viewed in the context of World Vision’s religious mission — CSRs perform “vital religious duties” by communicating the faith and praying with donors. A striking extension of the exception’s functional reach to an entry-level, remote position.

The University of California refuses to employ undocumented students who lack federal work authorization. The First District held that the policy facially discriminates based on immigration status under the FEHA national-origin regulations, and that the University’s only justification — fear that the federal government might read IRCA to cover it and prosecute — could not sustain the policy, because the University never attempted the regulation’s clear-and-convincing showing that federal law requires the discrimination. The court issued a writ directing the Regents to reconsider the policy on proper criteria, while pointedly declining to decide whether IRCA applies to state entities at all.

A sheriff’s deputy proved every element of his whistleblower retaliation claim — and still left the courthouse owing costs. The jury found his protected disclosures were a factor in the County’s actions against him, but also that the County would have made the same decisions anyway. Division Four held that a plaintiff defeated by the section 1102.6 same-decision defense who obtains no relief has not brought a “successful action” under section 1102.5(j): no attorney’s fees, and the employer is the prevailing party for costs. The panel declined to extend Harris v. City of Santa Monica’s FEHA rule, agreed the contrary result would be “a rational policy choice,” and pointedly left the fix to the Legislature.

Inglewood’s elected city treasurer accused the mayor of misappropriating public funds, then saw her monthly salary cut from $8,000 to $1,404 and her duties stripped away. Her whistleblower retaliation suit under Labor Code section 1102.5 failed at the threshold: a unanimous Supreme Court held that elected officials are not “employees” within section 1106’s definition. Finding the statutory text inconclusive, the court rested on legislative history and context — section 1106 protects rank-and-file public workers, not officials who answer to the electorate — while noting that other remedies, including the First Amendment, may remain available.

Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, lost a promotion to a lesbian candidate, then was demoted and replaced by a gay man. The Sixth Circuit threw out her Title VII case because she had not shown “background circumstances” suggesting her employer was the unusual one that discriminates against the majority. A unanimous Supreme Court vacated: Title VII protects “any individual,” and its prima facie standard does not vary with the plaintiff’s group. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, concurred to question whether McDonnell Douglas belongs at summary judgment at all — an invitation with consequences for FEHA practice under Guz.

A Postmaster of Chinese ethnicity was demoted after coworkers targeted her with complaints her supervisor believed were racially motivated, and the demotion was confirmed by an official who reviewed only the paperwork. The Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment, holding that replacement by a white man satisfied the McDonnell Douglas fourth element and that a genuine dispute existed over whether the confirming decision was “actually independent or influenced by subordinate bias” — a Ninth Circuit application of the cat’s-paw doctrine.

Reversing summary judgment for United Airlines, the Court of Appeal held that whether three male employees with comparable social-media accounts were "similarly situated" comparators was a question for the jury, applied the continuing violation doctrine and section 12923's low bar to the harassment claim, and found a two-week complaint-to-termination gap sufficient for retaliation causation.

In Hoglund v. Sierra Nevada Memorial-Miners Hospital (2024) 102 Cal.App.5th 56, a 62-year-old hospital laboratory supervisor won a bench verdict for FEHA age discrimination, harassment, and wrongful termination after her director made years of ageist remarks and steered her selection for layoff. The Court of Appeal affirmed. Applying the “cat's-paw” (imputed-animus) theory, it held that a biased subordinate's discriminatory motive may be imputed to the employer where the subordinate was a “significant participant” in the adverse decision — even though a separate, formally unbiased officer signed off on the final call. Animus by a significant participant supports an inference that the decision itself was discriminatory.

The First District held that an employer's same-decision showing under Labor Code § 1102.6 is a complete defense to a § 1102.5 whistleblower claim — barring declaratory relief and attorney's fees along with damages — expressly declining to import Harris v. City of Santa Monica's FEHA partial-defense rule.

Muldrow v. City of St. LouisA Title VII plaintiff challenging a discriminatory job transfer must show only “some harm” to a term or condition of employment — not a “significant” or “material” disadvantage.Muldrow v. City of St. Louis (2024) 601 U.S. 346Parallel citations: 144 S.Ct. 967; 218 L.Ed.2d 322. Supreme Court of the United States. […]

An Evangelical Christian postal worker who would not work Sundays sued under Title VII after being disciplined for declining Sunday Amazon deliveries. The Third Circuit, reading Hardison to require only 'more than a de minimis cost,' affirmed summary judgment for the employer. A unanimous Supreme Court vacated and clarified the standard: an employer that denies a religious accommodation must show that granting it would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business, not merely a more-than-trivial cost.

People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s, Inc. A protected “disclosure” under Labor Code section 1102.5(b) includes an employee’s report or complaint of a legal violation to an employer — even when the recipient already knows of the violation. People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 719 Parallel citations: 529 P.3d 49; 308 […]

Months after Lawson, the Third District affirmed summary judgment for the County of Sacramento under Labor Code § 1102.6 — undisputed evidence of insubordination, disrespect, and dishonesty proved clearly and convincingly that the county would have released the probationary employee anyway — while leaving open whether § 1102.5 requires an actual belief that the law was violated.

Reversing summary judgment for the UC Regents, the Second District mapped the post-Lawson landscape — Labor Code § 1102.6 governs § 1102.5 claims, Government Code § 8547.10(e) supplies the same framework for University of California whistleblowers, and McDonnell Douglas still governs Health and Safety Code § 1278.5 claims, under which Scheer's clause-by-clause dismantling of his termination letter raised a triable issue of pretext.

When a medical resident sues her residency program for discrimination, the program's 'academic' justification for dismissing her is not entitled to the deference courts extend to genuine academic judgments. The Second District held that a resident is predominantly an employee, not a student, so the jury must evaluate the program's real reason without deference — and the contrary instruction required a new trial.

An employer cannot rebut a discrimination plaintiff’s prima facie case by professing ignorance: stage-two production under McDonnell Douglas demands the actual nondiscriminatory reason for a failure to interview, not a witness’s “I don’t know.”

In the Sixth District's treatise-level employment-MSJ opinion, a security supervisor laid off days before his expected return from knee surgery revives his disability discrimination and wrongful termination claims — the employer's RIF showing was inadequate under Guz's "roadmap" because it never explained retaining two lower-ranked supervisors, and its failure to accommodate, the timing, and an overpayment vendetta were substantial evidence of animus — while the retaliation claim fails because pre-2016 accommodation requests were not protected activity.

A 60-year-old engineer cut in a 306-person, budget-driven layoff lost on both procedure and merits: his EEOC and post-closure DFEH amendments could not exhaust class and disparate-impact theories, and his pretext case failed for want of combined-position qualifications, controlled statistics, and comparators.

An employer that fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII. Discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity necessarily entails discrimination because of sex, because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being gay or transgender without taking the…